09 May 2008

Gordon Ramsay - the fascist chef

Well after this BBC report where Gordon Ramsay said this:
"Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay says British restaurants should be fined if they serve fruit and vegetables which are not in season. .. Mr Ramsay said he had already spoken to Prime Minister Gordon Brown about outlawing out-of-season produce"
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There is only this to say...
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Dear Gordon

Pardon the expletives but it is important you understand.

You’re a fucking good chef, of course you are, there are few bastards in the world half as good as you, so shit, you can talk with authority about food and running restaurants. I can't doubt that for a moment

However, you know fuck all about economics you dozy prick. You want restaurants to be fined for using out of season food. Besides the obvious of how the fuck you’ll enforce this shitty idea (imagine people furtively saying "shhh there is a restaurant that's selling strawberries out of season, don't tell anyone"), what the fuck is it your business? Unless you want protectionism, but you're not the sort of loser twat who would I am sure.
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What if I fucking want asparagus in December? Do what you like in your restaurants and leave everyone else's alone you cunt! By the way you ignorant fucker, ever looked south of the equator, when it’s winter in Britain it’s fucking summer in South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, not out of season there, and a lot of people make a living out of selling that produce to people in Britain who want it – and you know what? Most of them don’t get the namby pampy subsidies for losers like ones in Britain do from Brussels – which by the way also subsidies your beloved local farmers exporting elsewhere and fucking up markets around the world. Maybe you should learn a bit more about how mollycoddled farming is in Europe you dickhead, and even how that has fucked up farming elsewhere in the world.
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So when you say that fruit and vegetables should not be imported into Britain, presumably they can’t be exported too. Not going to get too many fucking bananas then are you? How about the great British grown citrus fruits? Oh maybe you just think that it should only be produce grown in Britain that isn’t imported – classic protectionist, putting the price up of course, like you’d care though. Let the prols pay more for food, the ungrateful peasants. Is that what you think?

You talk as if it is about carbon emissions – what bullshit! Tomatoes grown in Spain and shipped to the UK have a lower carbon footprint that ones grown in heated hothouse farms in Britain. Not so fucking simple now is it brainbox? Ever noted how butter and lamb from New Zealand shipped to the UK has a lower carbon footprint after all that than British produced butter and lamb? You fucking tosser being taken in by this food miles malarky, and I bet you still drive too.

You say “There should be stringent laws, licensing laws, to make sure produce is only used in season and season only," … "If we don't restrict our movements within this industry of seasonal-produce only, then the whole thing will spiral out of control."

Oh you fucking fascist prick. You want a bunch of bureaucrats poking their nose into restaurants checking where the fuck the produce has come from, making sure a strawberry, apple or yam is not in the wrong place. Oh and what is “out of control” mean? You mean people actually just choosing what they want, paying for what they want, and farmers who work fucking hard who don’t happen to be in Europe (because you can’t implement this bullshit against the EU you cock, unless you want to pull out, which is another argument) and don’t suck off of the great tit of Brussels can just fuck off? Well fuck you!

Ok so how about this, let’s restrict all you fucking do to Britain. Ban your TV programmes, books and you even opening up restaurants elsewhere in the world. Who wants some foul mouthed English chef when they can have their own, in fact why trade at all? Don’t get kitchen appliances from Italy, France, USA or Japan, get British ones – get British cars too (good luck), after all if you want to fuck the rest of the trading world with your economic nationalism, then you can’t expect the world to want to buy or sell you anything.

So while you sit playing with yourself thinking how great it would be for a restaurant to be fined for selling an apple pie in June, or tomato sauce from the USA, you could be doing something more useful – run your restaurants and shut the fuck up. You want better quality food, then keep doing what you are doing, but accept that a lot of people in Britain like the bland mass produced crud that is found as ready meals, or is called sandwiches. They do because it is cheap and convenient and they have the taste buds of a goat, but it is THEIR fucking choice.
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People can choose things you don’t like and you can’t do a fucking thing about it – leave it that way. Plenty of fascists want the world to be their way, you’re not the first. How about remembering you are in charge of your restaurant and your property – you are not in charge of anyone else, that’s why on this proposal there is only one right answer.

Fuck off.

Mike Moore on why many poor countries are poor

Yes, former Labour Prime Minister (well for a few weeks anyway) hasn't got it wrong. Unlike the doomsayers on the left, he paints an optimistic picture about poverty in his Dominion Post column:

"In the past 60 years, more wealth has been created than in all of history. The number of people living on less than a dollar a day has dropped from 40 per cent in 1981 to 18 per cent in 2004. During the same period, the numbers living on less than $2 a day have dropped from 67 per cent to 48 per cent."


That hasn't been because of charity. Moore points out that:

"Private ownership works. Open economies always do better, competition and trade drive up better results and drive out corruption, as well as allocate resources more efficiently. A free market without solid, trusted institutions, property rights, independent courts, a professional public service and democracy is not a free market but a black market."

Yes yes, though we may argue about how much of a public service is needed, he's got it! However it is more than just having corrupt free institutions it is about getting the hell out of the way of doing business:
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"in Egypt it can take 500 days, 29 visits and 29 agencies, compliance with 315 laws, and costs 27 times the monthly minimum wage to open a bakery."
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Funny how so many on the left think that somehow the world is impoverishing countries that actually are badly governed and overgoverned in many respects. He concludes that property rights are what is needed, so that the poor can leverage off what they own, have access to courts when their rights are infringed upon and can protect what they produce.
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"We can establish property rights which will encourage people into the formal economy. It's not that radical, it simply suggests that poor people in poor countries should have the rights that rich countries have. Perhaps that's why they are rich."
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Now can someone tell the Labour, Green and National Parties?

Nick Smith spits on property rights... again

Although Stuff reports Nick Smith as "Conservation Minister" (wait till after the election guys), Dr Smith wants to confiscate the property rights of Kaiangaroa Timberlands to protect some douglas firs. He wants them protected, which presumably doesn't mean Kaiangaroa Timberlands has any option on not selling them.
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He wont offer to buy them himself, or set up a charity that seeks to raise funds to buy them.
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No they should be bought with taxpayers funds because they are "part of New Zealand's heritage". Nice.
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Now you know how much better National will be than Labour on property rights, as if you had any doubts. Is it any wonder one of my fastest growing tags is "National party disappoints"?

Are your kids on Adultfriendfinder?

Ok Stuff reports that a man is in prison for having sex with three underage girls, 2 were 14, 1 was 12. However check this out:
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"Davidson initiated contact with the girls through internet websites AdultFriend Finder and Bebo, and by using MSN, email, and text messaging after the initial contact."
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Now the risks of Bebo as a social networking site for young girls are well known, but Adultfriendfinder? What's that then? Well it is a website for adults that want to meet to have a sexual relationship "The World's Largest Sex & Swinger Personals Community" it claims. It asks that all members declare their birthday as it requires that all of its members be 18 or over. Now Adultfriendfinder is free, but as with many such sites you can't do much without having paid membership. For starters you can't see anyone's photos, and you can only send messages to other members if you are very popular or if a paid member has paid to allow standard members to contact them.
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Hmmm, so presumably at least one of these girls of 14, pretended to be 18 on her profile and while posting her picture online couldn't view others. What's that about? Not so innocent? Adultfriendfinder is a blocked site listed with several well known parental control software suppliers, presumably the girl's parents didn't care where she went online.
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Does it justify his foolishness? No, although unless she confessed early on about age, he could well have believed she was 18 as, after all, her profile would have to say that. Adultfriendfinder vets profiles before they are posted too, to avoid the "claim 18 but say I'm younger in the profile" problem, so she must have told him at some point after he started contact.
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So when a 57 year old man find a girl who says she is 18 on an adult contact site, and she's your daughter 14 - you might ask yourself what you did to prevent her going where she shouldn't go, and don't blame the state.
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UPDATE: It is notable that the NZ Herald never mentioned Adultfriendfinder, but did mention the girls pretended to be 18 and 16 online. However, it is an offence to sexually groom those underage even if you don't know they are (which he did when he met them), interesting thought crime that one is.

Burma's bullies let their subjects die

How utterly repulsive it is, day after day people are dying in Burma, not for the want of those willing to help, but because the petty little men who run the military dictatorship refuse to let the US in to help, and are maintaning a bureaucratic process for visas that is insane and proving deadly.
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The BBC reports UN World Food Programme regional director Anthony Banbury saying "We will not just bring our supplies to an airport, dump it and take off".
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The BBC reporter Paul Danahar notes ...Normally after a natural disaster, he says, roads are choked by the relief effort, but those into the Irrawaddy delta are empty.
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Charming really. CNN reports China is urging Burma to open up to aid supplies.
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So what to do? Well it wouldn't be immoral for armed forces from several countries to just enter, provide protection for aid workers, and tell the Burmese authorities that it will use force if necessary if anyone gets in the way of saving lives. The cowardly generals have already been seen on Myanmar state TV in posed shots of them delivering humanitarian assistance. Armed support for aid supplies is possibly the only sensible way forward, and if the regime cries that its sovereignty has been interfered with (and I am sure the so-called peace movement would decry any such action, preferring people to die in peace whilst their government ignores them), then its illegitimacy can be pointed to. The thugs in charge deserve no respect.